It’s been a while since we checked into the Sacramento Kings’ arena situation, which almost faced another crucial moment on Tuesday when the Sac City Council meeting was set to turn into a shootout at the Cowbell Corral.

On one side, arena opponent and council member Sandy Sheedy was ready to force debate on whether or not the city should hold a public vote on the issue in June. On the other side sits a city council that I’ve profiled in the past as being receptive toward approving the approximate $400 million Entertainment and Sports Complex. Only one other council member, Darrell Fong, has joined Sheedy in voting against a handful of critical procedural issues so far. If a new arena deal is not finalized by March 1, the NBA and Maloofs are going to move the Kings to Anaheim.

By the way the city charter in Sacramento is set up, the elected representatives of the city council are supposed to vote on matters like these. Sheedy wants to depart from that history and bring the vote to the public, knowing full well that a vote in June would be pointless because the Kings would already be gone.

Why is she anti-arena? It’s certainly not to save money for the city or to stand for economic principals. Sheedy is widely believed to be seeking political revenge against Kevin Johnson after she supported his run for mayor, but did not get a seat in his inner circle. Her seat is also up for grabs in the next council election, and with her district in economic chaos many of the city insiders I have spoken with don’t like her chances to repeat. This is her Hail Mary attempt at taking a position that is different from the pro-arena stance of her challengers, while trying to capitalize on an anti-arena sentiment that may or may not exist. It’s a gamble, but it’s also Sacramento politics at its finest.

More importantly to the reporting of whether or not it will be the Sacramento Kings or Anaheim Royals, Tuesday was going to force city council members to speak on the record about the arena once again. Specifically, they would have to either support or defend Sheedy’s obstructionist play. And just like the past meetings where council members were mostly transparent about their goals, we were going to get a real good read on where folks stood.

Apparently known arena proponent and councilman Rob Fong couldn’t make Tuesday’s meeting and Sheedy wanted the entire council to be present. Maybe this is a simple coincidence, but with the clock ticking it also wouldn’t be surprising if the absence is related to her opposition. If we’re going down that road, it won’t be surprising to see her gain something in relation to the arena issue as well as her campaign, with the delay setting the stage for her to gracefully back off.

Then again, maybe Fong had business to attend to and Sheedy is going to both reschedule and show up dressed as a purple Grinch.

Either way, we’ll find out soon if Sacramento has the money and votes to pull off one of the bigger saves in modern civic history.

Tom Benson, the now 90-year-old owner of the New Orleans Pelicans and the NFL’s Saints, a few years back changed around the succession of control of the team after his passing — his wife Gayle will take control. Rita Benson LeBlanc, Benson’s granddaughter and former handpicked successor, sued saying Benson had been manipulated. After meeting privately with Benson, a judge ruled that while Benson suffered some “cognitive impairment” he was capable of making his own decisions and that Gayle remained the successor.

Benson has been sued multiple times since then, including by former Saints employee Rodney Henry, and the then-89-year-old Benson was deposed in that case last year.

During another set of questions, apparently aimed at establishing how close Benson and Henry had been, Benson was shown a photo of the two men with Pelicans star Anthony Davis.

“Who is this?” Williams asked.

“It’s Rodney and a basketball player,” Benson said. “Oh, hell, I forget his name. Let me — he’s a great player for us. Tell me his name, and I will tell you yes or no.”

When asked “is it Anthony Davis,” Benson said yes. The man is 90, I’m not sure that we should expect much. He had the foresight to bring in people to run his businesses — including his sports teams — and set up a line of succession for when he does pass. Smart moves.

Would Benson’s mental state impact potential changes coming to the Pelicans? Probably not. New Orleans’ GM Dell Demps bet big on going big in a league trending smaller, pairing Davis and DeMarcus Cousins. If that doesn’t work out, plenty of people around the league expect a house cleaning on the basketball side with the Pelicans. Benson’s mental state, whatever it may be, does not impact that.

The deposition leak came from an anonymous source (and anonymous email account, the paper verified the document before publishing). Who leaked it? It may be nearly impossible to find out, but only one side benefits from all this becoming public. And it’s not Benson.

A few years back in Philadelphia, the athletic K.J. McDaniels was a highlight factory and looked like a guy who could develop into a role player on the wing in the NBA.

Except, he never actually developed. Houston gave him a chance (three years at a total of $10 million), and it didn’t work out, then last season Brooklyn had him for 20 games, but they decided to move on.

Now Toronto is going to give him a chance, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.

McDaniels’ agent later confirmed the news. This is a training camp, make-good contract for McDaniels. But unlike a lot of those contracts being handed out around this time, there is space on the Raptors roster for a player or two.

Before the KJ McDaniels partial, Toronto had $116.6M in guaranteed salary with 13 players + the $100K partial of Alfonzo McKinnie.

McDaniels will compete with Alfonzo McKinnie, Kennedy Meeks, and Kyle Wiltjer for one of the final roster spots in Toronto. Of that group, I’d most likely want to keep McDaniels because of the shot blocking and his potential — but his outside shot has to improve.

The Raptors can carry 15 on the roster and very possibly will until at least Jan. 10, which is the date these partially guaranteed deals become fully guaranteed for the season. Toronto is flirting with the tax line, and ownership is not going to want to pay the tax for this team, so if they do carry 15 they likely will cut it to 14 by that date.

The #DriveByDunkChallenge has been a fun distraction this summer. If you don’t know what it is, it essentially involves NBA players jumping out of their cars to dunk on regular folks on community basketball hoops.

There are still some serious doubts about whether the Celtics will be able to unseat the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference, but perhaps they won’t need to wait for long. Rumors are starting to trickle in about LeBron James leaving Ohio, so maybe by the time we are used to seeing Hayward in Celtics green next season they will have less competition out east.